


Defender

by SleepsWithCoyotes



Series: Different Skies [2]
Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games), Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Archival Fic, Crossover, Don't copy to another site, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:07:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25208188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SleepsWithCoyotes/pseuds/SleepsWithCoyotes
Summary: Maybe it's the company he keeps.
Relationships: Ciel Phantomhive & Riku
Series: Different Skies [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1826203
Comments: 2
Kudos: 27





	Defender

**Author's Note:**

> Back to working on moving stuff over from the spambot...this one's from 2009.

They took the train on the way back from Wales, the carriage having been demolished, though Sebastian could have acquired them another in short order. 'The sooner we return home, the better,' Ciel had said after giving the order. 'Riku deserves a rest.'

 _He_ deserved a rest, if it came to that, but Sebastian didn't call him on it and Riku didn't argue, just waved him off with uncharacteristic exhaustion. So perhaps it wasn't only a case of him attempting to save face.

He wasn't at all surprised when Sebastian managed to book them a private berth, even at such short notice. Even Riku seemed not to notice this minor feat, but then, Riku looked half-asleep as it was, had perhaps fallen into the habit of expecting miracles from the demon, possibly didn't realize just how crowded trains could get, even when one was an Earl. Riku followed where he was led--a minor miracle in itself--keeping up a grim sort of alertness until the conductor showed them to their private car, then sagged once the door was closed behind them.

"That," Riku said, flopping down onto the seat beside Ciel while Sebastian was still stowing the luggage, "was ridiculous. And then some."

"Mm," Ciel hummed noncommittally, eyeing his Fighter sidelong. If he didn't know better, he'd say Riku hadn't slept in three days--and it was just as likely that he _hadn't_. He'd seen Riku push himself harder for less provocation, and though he didn't want to be impressed, it amazed him sometimes that anything human could put up with the abuse Riku put himself through and still walk away under his own power.

He'd asked, and Sebastian hadn't _outright_ laughed, but clearly Riku was no demon. And certainly no angel, either.

"What was that spell you used?" Ciel asked, focusing on Sebastian's smooth efficiency instead of his Fighter's boneless slump, distracting yawns. "There at the end."

"Spell?" Riku roused himself enough to mutter. "Nn. That was the Keyblade."

"Keyblade." It was an odd name for a spell, if it was a spell.

"Uh-huh. Wasn't sure I could even summon it here," Riku offered with a shrug, drowsily unguarded, though there was an undeniable spark of _sense_ in his eyes that told Ciel his Fighter knew just what he was saying. "Your world's magic is all weird."

His world. Ciel stared, waking up himself as questions began to tumble over one another in his mind, all fighting to be first on his tongue--but Riku yawned again, ears lax, tail a limp curl between them on the seat. Already his eyes were closing, and Ciel hesitated, glancing sharply at Sebastian.

Who didn't look surprised.

Clenching his jaw on questions and accusations alike, Ciel turned his head to glare out the window, listening unwillingly as Riku's quiet breath evened out beside him, grew heavy and slow. Really, he might have known. He hadn't been meant to _live_ \--why would he be meant to have a Fighter? And if Riku had come from elsewhere, then it was a better than even chance that he'd leave the same way he'd come, and sooner rather than later. Which made no difference, of course; Ciel didn't need a Fighter, not when the alternative was the only thing he needed protecting from, and when the time came, Ciel didn't intend to fight.

"He's been looking for the Keyhole," Sebastian offered suddenly as he sat down across from them, for once without his ubiquitous smirk. "To seal our world."

Ciel arched a brow. "To keep us in?"

"To keep other things out," Sebastian corrected him mildly. "It worries me that he hasn't found it yet."

Ciel considered that, weighing the earnestness of Sebastian's face against all that he knew of the demon and Riku. Demons, Sebastian was fond of saying, didn't lie. But there was not lying and there was being honest, and Ciel knew better than to trust too far.

"Why?" he asked bluntly, interest caught by Sebastian's pursed lips, unsettled frown.

"If it's still hiding from him," the demon said slowly, "it may be because of the company he's keeping."

Eyes narrowing, Ciel regarded Sebastian shrewdly, not believing for an instant that the demon referred only to himself by that remark. If they had, between them, manage to _stain_ Riku somehow--Sebastian with his infernal aura, Ciel through the bond he shared with his Fighter--

"How urgent," he asked calmly, "is it that he find this...'Keyhole?'"

"That would depend on how quickly the Heartless find someone willing to open our world."

Heartless. Keyblades. All this talk of _worlds_.

"The Phantomhives have always protected the Crown."

"There's more than a crown," Sebastian warned him soberly, "at stake, young master."

Ciel frowned, glancing thoughtfully out the window again. The wise thing might very well be to distance themselves from Riku, abandon him somewhere with money and references and hope for the best. Or he could send Sebastian elsewhere for a time, far but not too far, and see whether Riku had it in him to be a true Fighter for the Phantomhives.

The latter plan he rejected after only the briefest of hesitations--whatever terrible things Riku thought he'd done in the past, he could never be what Ciel was--but the former....

Sighing in his sleep, Riku shifted, slid, and just like the cat he so effortlessly resembled, gravitated to the nearest source of heat with a sleepy hum that might just as well have been a purr. Ciel considered squirming away as Riku slumped bonelessly against him, but then it was too late. A short "Hn," presumably at the boniness of Ciel's shoulder, and a single irritated tail-thump later, and Riku had made himself at home, face turned into Ciel's neck, one silver ear flicking ticklishly against his cheek.

Reaching up hesitantly, he drew his fingers along the warm silk of that short-furred triangle, expecting to be shaken off. When Riku only sighed, ear twitching again, he caught hold more firmly, rubbed the itch away with slow, massaging strokes that sent Riku more boneless than before.

He swallowed hard, closed his eyes so he wouldn't have to see what expression Sebastian was wearing, whether it was knowing amusement or pity. _You might have said_ , he expected to hear at any moment, but how ridiculous would it have looked for the Phantomhive butler to still have his ears at that age? And it would have ruined Sebastian's usefulness in any number of ways to have to keep them.

Opening his eyes, he glanced down at the head resting on his shoulder and firmed his mouth. No. He had no intention of sending Sebastian away, and he had no intention of giving up his Fighter, not until Riku walked away himself. Whatever Riku was searching for, it couldn't hide from the combined resources of all three of them. And Sebastian might be right--there might be more at stake than he realized--but so long as the Crown was in danger, the dog of the Queen would act.

"All right," he said, giving up on the pretense that he wasn't petting his Fighter's ears, that he had any intention of being reasonable about this. "Whatever this Keyhole is, we'll help him find it."

"Even if it means he has to leave afterwards?"

Sebastian still had his earnest face on when Ciel's eyes jerked up suspiciously, so all he could do was nod.

"Even then."

The demon looked nearly torn as he glanced at Riku, and Ciel fought the urge to growl. However tempting Riku's soul might be, Sebastian's contract was with him; his Fighter didn't enter into it.

"Then," Sebastian murmured, one corner of his mouth curling up slowly, "I don't believe we'll have any more trouble. Not with such a capable defender behind him."

Ciel snorted. "Perhaps you're unfamiliar with the mechanics of Fighters and Sacrifices."

"As you say, young master," Sebastian replied, not quite chuckling but close.

He wouldn't think of worlds, or what lay beyond his own; he had too much to do here. But he wondered what it meant that Riku, who could travel between them, was bonded to him, what the chances were that the last few names on his list from that long, long month might be out of Sebastian's reach but not his Fighter's. Not missing; not dead. Just elsewhere.

It was something he intended to find out before he did the ridiculous thing and let his Fighter go.


End file.
